Renault

Nissan Motor Co., one of Japan's biggest companies, is negotiating to cede control to France's Renault SA. According to an offer disclosed Tuesday, Renault would buy about 35 percent of Nissan - enough to put Renault in the driver's seat because it could veto Nissan board decisions. The two sides didn't reveal a proposed price, but analysts think the investment is worth about $4 billion.

SEOUL (The Korea Herald/ANN) -- Samsung Group wants to remove its brand name from Renault Samsung Motors with a related contract between the two pending until 2020, group officials said. "We want to take our brand 'Samsung' out of Renault Samsung since we don't have anything to do with the car sales," a Samsung executive recently told The Korea Herald. Samsung Card, a financial unit of the group, is still the No. 2 stakeholder of Renault Samsung, holding a 19.9 percent stake in the carmaker which holds the fourth position in Korea in automobile market share.

As part of an effort to expand in Asia, Renault is considering taking a stake in troubled Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. A flurry of news reports over the weekend said Renault is one of several companies seriously considering a tie-up with Nissan, Japan's second-largest automaker. In a statement released Monday, the French car and truck maker said it was ``talking with a number of potential partners, including Nissan.'' Responding to reports that Renault, DaimlerChrysler AG and Ford Motor Co. might be interested in buying part of Nissan, the Japanese automaker said Saturday it would welcome such offers.

Arabian Automobiles has announced the arrival of a brand new model in its Renault's line-up -- the Renault Duster. It was first launched in the region at the 2011 Dubai International Motor Show by Mark Webber, Red Bull Racing Renault Formula One driver, and Mustansir Lakdawala, managing director of Renault GCC. With a starting price of Dh48,600 it offers customers a globally-acclaimed 4x2 SUV for the same money as a compact sedan. It goes up to Dh64,500 for 4x4 manual transmission and available in all GCC countries from May 7. It was also announced that Renault recorded more than 50 per cent growth in sales in the first quarter, compared to same period last year.

Renault's money problems should ease somewhat now that the French government has agreed to invest $2 billion in the state-owned automaker.However, this generosity may not resolve a quarrel between France and the European Economic Community over France's plans to keep Renault solvent.The EEC wants Renault to operate as a normal company rather than as a government authority. Okay, say the French, as long as we can continue to invest in the company.France has pledged to operate Renault in accordance with a French law that gives a government decision status similar to that of a vote by general shareholders.

Renault and Volvo are expected to announce their merger today, creating the world's sixth-largest automaker, French and Swedish newspapers reported. The deal, which reportedly would give the French state-owned Renault a controlling 65 percent share and Volvo a veto on major strategic decisions, had been expected for more than a year. The two companies have cooperated since February 1990 in purchasing and product development, and both own large portions of each other's stock. News reports in both countries said the joint company would initially have 210,000 employees in eight countries and could produce 2.5 million vehicles a year.

General Motors Corp. ended talks aimed at teaming with Carlos Ghosn's Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. because of a dispute over GM's demand to be compensated for taking part in an alliance. GM wanted the payment to make up for the benefits the French and Japanese automakers would have received, the companies said Wednesday. GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner also said a Renault-Nissan partnership would have prevented his company from pursuing ties with other automakers. The decision, reached unanimously by GM's 12-member board, also signals the directors' support for Wagoner's strategy to restructure the company.

NEW YORK - Renault once again will sell its cars in North America, under its own badge in Mexico, and perhaps rebadging its products under the Nissan brand in the United States, Renault Chairman Louis Schweitzer said last week.Renault products likely would be changed to fit U.S. tastes, he noted, acknowledging that Renault's last attempt here, in the 1980s, failed ``because the product was not good.''There is a good chance a Nissan or Infiniti vehicle sold in the United States could come from a Renault-designed platform, have a Renault powertrain and be influenced by Renault design, Renault and Nissan executives agreed.

Renault's chairman, Louis Schweitzer, said Friday that Swedish carmaker Volvo AB would pay a high price for retreating from its merger with the French automaker. ''There are clearly costs for whoever breaks off unilaterally,'' he said. Volvo on Thursday also forced out its chairman, Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, who negotiated the deal and had been under fire over the plan. Critics said the merger threatened the long-term interests of Volvo shareholders and workers. Renault issued a statement saying it ''deplored'' Volvo's decision.

The leftist French terrorist group Direct Action claimed responsibility Tuesday for assassinating the president of the state-owned Renault automobile company.Police said they received an anonymous call to go to the Raspail subway station on the Left Bank, where passers-by found and turned over to officers two mud-stained Direct Action leaflets claiming responsibility for the killing of Renault chairman Georges Besse, 58.The leaflets called for a world struggle ''between the international proletariat and the imperialist bourgeois'' and urged a ''communist organization'' to emerge from ''factories and neighborhoods.

I'm not sure who it was, but apparently someone at Nissan asked a question that might have never occurred to me: "Wouldn't it be great if we took our very successful four-door Nissan Murano SUV, chopped off the top, removed two of the doors, made it a convertible and added maybe $7,250 to the price?" This person must have been high in the Nissan food chain, because evidently he was taken seriously. The next thing we knew there was this sea-green Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet concept vehicle making the auto show rounds, which many of us initially considered an interesting little styling exercise, until Nissan said they were building it. This is out of character for Nissan, especially since the company was taken over by Renault and its bottom line-centric chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn, who assumed the same title at Nissan and did so well he was featured as a superhero in a series of Japanese comic books.

Name a failing automaker that needed outside help to survive. General Motors and Chrysler don't count. They're too easy. How about BMW, Nissan, Renault and Ferrari? Among the world's most admired brands and companies, none would exist if somebody hadn't thrown them a lifeline. Tokyo Electric was within hours of shutting off the lights at Nissan headquarters when Renault came in with a low-ball offer and new management in 1999. Renault itself had been in shambles 15 years earlier, when the French government ousted the chairman and installed new leadership.

The financial crisis the United States faces reminds me of lines from the 1942 movie Cassablanca: Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? Capt. Renault: I'm shocked, simply shocked to find that gambling is going on here! [Someone hands Renault some chips]: Your winnings, sir. Capt. Renault: Thank you very much. We need to stop being "shocked," not only by the scale of the economic crisis we are facing, but that even after the government steps in to bail out the likes of CitiGroup and AIG, that excesses and corruption continue to occur.

Madison Square Garden and New York Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas have settled the sexual harassment case brought by a former team executive who was awarded $11.6 million in punitive damages. The deal came as Anucha Browne Sanders was preparing to return to U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. "We don't feel any less strongly than we did throughout the entire episode," MSG said in a statement. "The outcome was a travesty of justice, and we vehemently disagree with the jury's decision, however, at the strong request of [the NBA commissioner]

Jose Guillen and the Kansas City Royals completed their $36 million, three-year contract Thursday, hours before the power-hitting outfielder was suspended for the first 15 days of next season for violating baseball's drug policy. Guillen and Baltimore's Jay Gibbons were disciplined by Major League Baseball, making them the first players punished as the result of government investigations into performance-enhancing drugs. "We signed Jose knowing that was a possibility," Royals General Manager Dayton Moore said.

General Motors Corp. ended talks aimed at teaming with Carlos Ghosn's Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. because of a dispute over GM's demand to be compensated for taking part in an alliance. GM wanted the payment to make up for the benefits the French and Japanese automakers would have received, the companies said Wednesday. GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner also said a Renault-Nissan partnership would have prevented his company from pursuing ties with other automakers. The decision, reached unanimously by GM's 12-member board, also signals the directors' support for Wagoner's strategy to restructure the company.

An increasingly common way of enlivening car designs that have lost their novelty is to slap European-styled aerodynamic plastic panels and spoilers on them. Add to that the also-Euro-styled ''monochromatic'' paint job, and even the most ordinary econocar can be made to look contemporary or even avant- garde.However, beneath the glitter it either has it or it doesn't. Renault's new GTA, the quickest spin yet on the four-year-old Alliance design, has it.The parts that add up to excitement in the GTA include the aero gear and the single-color paint job -- in white, black, red or a silver metallic -- but the major addends are beneath the spiffy surface.

MEXICO CITY - French automaker Renault said it will resume auto production in Mexico in 2001 after a 15-year absence and plans to invest $400 million in the country by 2006. The firm stopped selling cars in Mexico in 1984. The company's return was made possible by its purchase in March of a 37 percent stake in Nissan Motor Co., which ranks third in auto sales in Mexico. Renault, once known for boxy subcompacts, will start production of its Scenic compact model in early 2001 and add the Clio compact model in 2002, said Louis Schweitzer, Renault's chairman and chief executive.

If Michael Schumacher retires at Sunday's Italian Grand Prix, as German media are reporting, it will be the biggest milestone in Formula One since the death of the man Schumacher replaced at the pinnacle, Ayrton Senna, in 1994. At 37, Schumacher has obliterated every meaningful record in F1 with 89 wins, seven championships, 68 poles and 152 podiums. Mathematically, he still could win an eighth title. With four races to go, he trails points leader and defending world champion Fernando Alonso by 12 points.

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA, said he doesn't want to add the top job at General Motors Corp. to his current duties. "I'm not going to run a third company," Ghosn said Thursday in a televised interview on CNBC. "I am saying categorically it is out of the question that I'll add, on top of my two present responsibilities, being CEO of Renault and Nissan, another one." Ghosn and GM CEO Rick Wagoner will meet today in private at an undisclosed location to discuss the alliance proposed two weeks ago by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, the biggest individual investor at Detroit-based GM. Ghosn said earlier that he sees big opportunities in linking with GM. Renault and Nissan will continue talks only if they and GM think there is an opportunity to work together, Ghosn told the French newspaper Le Monde.